Escapism
by beege
Summary: Ranma finds a unique solution to his problems.
1. 1

Escapism

_Damnit that hurt!_ Ranma thought as he dragged himself out of the crater he'd left in the sidewalk. He doubted Akane even realised it, but lately her mallet attacks had contained a hot-chi aspect that meant they pummeled _and_ burnt him.

_It figures that when Akane finally learns a chi technique she does it by accident_, Ranma groused to himself as he got his bearings and gingerly began to walk in the direction of Nerima. The heat of Akane's attack left nasty minor burns that chafed under his clothing, where it wasn't burnt through, and the impact of landing exacerbated the problem.

_At least I didn't have any of my college stuff with me_, Ranma reflected, feeling a little surge of relief at the thought. Last week Akane had malleted him as he'd been coming home with a folder full of assignments and notes which had wound up spread across half of Tokyo when she'd launched him into the sky.

_And she didn't even apologize for it! Just said it was _my _fault_.

Oddly enough, the loss of his work had annoyed Ranma far more than any of Akane's assaults on him had.

_Then she had the nerve to tell me that it didn't matter when I complained about all the work I'd have to do over. I can't believe she said my Sport Studies degree wasn't a _real_ degree_.

Ranma scowled at the memory. In his anger he'd asked Akane how she'd feel if she had to do a bunch of work over again. Akane had informed him in a superior tone that his sports degree wasn't a proper course, unlike the ones she was taking in acting.

_All her insults and bad cooking and being suspicious for no reason I could live with, but this is different, somehow. It's like, I dunno, it's the real world now and I'm trying to grow up and be responsible and she doesn't seem to care at all. I'm trying to move beyond all that crap we went through as teenagers and she wants to drag it along!_

It was Akane's refusal to leave old patterns of behaviour behind that really infuriated Ranma. After actually getting into college he'd begun to hope that his life might actually be changing for the better.

He'd been wrong.

He was still trapped in a web of conflicting honor agreements, his father and Tendo Soun were still trying to decide his fate to suit themselves, Shampoo and Ukyo and even Kodachi were still pursuing him and Akane was still whipping out her mallet on a regular basis. His life was in a definite rut. Actually, Akane had gotten worse, because they were going to different colleges and she was sure he was 'pestering all those poor women with his perverted attentions.'

_And there's no way out._

* * *

_Kami I'm tired._

The previous evening Ranma had gotten home just in time to find out that Akane had cooked dinner. Telling her he wasn't hungry, even without mentioning it was because the smell of the meal she'd prepared had killed his appetite, apparently qualified as an insult to her.

So out came the mallet.

And then Soun had declared he wasn't welcome under their roof tonight, so it had been sleep outside time. Ranma had come to suspect that Soun's overreactions in such situations were a deliberate attempt to sap his will for standing up to Akane. That realisation had only strengthened his willingness not to simply give in to her point of view, however skewed it might be. The Saotome and Tendo patriarchs might think that a marriage which was peaceful solely because one member allowed the other to get their way no matter what was wedded bliss, but Ranma disagreed. And with Kasumi married to Doctor Tofu, Nabiki boarding at her college and his mother still living in the family home there was no longer anyone around who might have been willing or able to defuse tense situations. He and Akane were arguing more than they ever had. So now here he was, trudging towards college, tired, miserable and running late.

And so caught up in his personal problems that he wasn't looking where he was going.

"Ow!"

"Oh my, are you alright?"

Ranma looked around to see a stooped old woman with graying hair and kindly brown eyes looking at him with concern. Dazedly Ranma raised a hand to his forehead and felt a wet stickiness that he recognised as blood. Looking up Ranma saw that he'd hit his head on a low-hanging sign outside a shop of some kind.

"I'm fine," he muttered absently.

"I don't think you are," she disagreed, taking hold of his elbow and ushering him inside the shop with a familiarity that suggested it was hers.

"Now you just sit down there and I'll bring you a nice cup of tea and something to clean up that blood," she told Ranma firmly as she pushed him down into a comfortable, though somewhat tattered armchair and headed into the rear of the small building. The bemused martial artist looked around curiously as he waited for the elderly woman to return and decided that he was in some kind of antiques shop. The place was filled to bursting with old, dusty pieces of furniture and weird looking knock-knacks.

"Here we go," the grey haired shop owner declared as she came bustling back into the main room holding a tray with a teapot and two cups on it, "this will make you feel better."

"Thanks," Ranma told her. "Ah . . . could you tell me your name?" he asked, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Everyone calls me Chiyo, Ranma-kun," she told him with a smile as she sat down in a wooden chair near his armchair and placed the tray on a side table that stood between them. Reaching into a pocket she pulled out a handkerchief and reached over to start dabbing at the cut on his forehead.

"You seemed awfully distracted," Chiyo commented as she cleaned the cut. "Is something wrong?"

Finished with her ministrations she poured tea for both of them and passed a cup to Ranma.

"What, oh yeah – mmm, this is nice – I've just been having kind of a rough time lately."

"I got that impression," Chiyo murmured sympathetically. "I have a feeling you could use a break from your own life."

Ranma laughed, not realising just how bitter he sounded.

"Ha! You can say that again," he replied.

"Hmmm. That bad?"

"Worse," Ranma replied, launching into the story of his life without considering the strangeness of revealing so much to a complete stranger. He spoke for the better part of an hour and when he was finished Chiyo looked at him with an expression that mixed astonishment.

"Yeah, I know," Ranma told her, having interpreted her expression correctly. My life is pretty weird.

"Weird is not the word I'd use, young man," Chiyo told him wryly, "but as it happens I may be able to help. Wait here."

Ranma frowned as Chiyo disappeared into the store's cluttered depths.

_What have I gotten myself into now?_

She returned less than a minute later, clutching a worn looking paperback in her hands.

"Here, Ranma-san," she told him, "I want you to have this."

Ranma took the novel gingerly, his brow furrowing as he read the title.

"_A Nice Normal Life_? What's it about?"

"Exactly what the title says," Chiyo replied, sounding a little smug. "I think you'll really like it."

"Huh. Well . . . thanks, Chiyo-san. That's . . . wait, what time is it?" Ranma asked, suddenly panicky as he remembered that he'd already been late for his first lecture. Chiyo looked at her watch.

"About a quarter to eleven, why do-"

"Ahhhh! I'm-sorry-Chiyo-san-but-I-really-have-to-go-thanks-for-everything-bye!" Ranma exclaimed as he jumped up, put the novel in his backpack and headed for the door. Chiyo shook her head fondly as she watched him leave.

"I hope you find what you're looking for, Ranma," she murmured.

* * *

Ranma's heart sank as he approached the Tendo Dojo that evening. Since Kasumi and Nabiki had left some of the energy had gone out of the place and whatever issues that kept his parents from living under the same roof also meant there was no-one really looking after the Tendo home. Kasumi's weekly visits weren't really enough and the place was starting to look decidedly shabby. All in all, not an appealing place to return home to after a bad day. He'd been taken to task by his lecturer for being late that morning and a run in with Mousse on the way home had given him a few new bruises. Now it was looking like that wouldn't be the last problem he faced today.

THUD, THUD, CRASH!

THUD, THUD, CRASH!

THUD, THUD, CRASH!

The sound of Akane breaking bricks in the front yard was audible from halfway down the street, a sure sign that she was in a particularly bad mood.

_I'm not even gonna try to talk to her tonight_, Ranma decided suddenly, _I''ll just go around the back, get something to eat and go up to my room. Yeah, that's a good plan_.

Ranma got as far as the back door of the house before his plan fell apart.

"And where do you think you're going?" he heard Akane's voice asking behind him. Ranma swore under his breath as he turned around.

_I shoulda been quieter. Nah, forget that, I should used the umisenken._

"Hey Akane. What's up?"

"What's up? WHAT'S UP?"

"That's what I said."

"You JERK! You've been fooling around with this Miyuki floozy behind my back! THAT'S WHAT!"

Ranma put his hand to his forehead and tried very hard to stay calm. Of all the people who could have called him at home, Miyuki was the worst. Not that she wasn't a nice girl, she was just . . . friendly. Friendly and effusive. Ranma was just glad that Akane never visited him on campus. Miyuki was always bugging him for lecture notes or help on an assignment or something and she didn't care much about personal boundaries. It didn't mean anything to her – hell, she had a boyfriend of her own, but the kami only knew what Akane would have made of it. And now she'd called him at home. She didn't know anything about his personal life, so he shuddered to think how that conversation had gone with Akane at the other end of the line.

_I should _not _have given her my number_, Ranma reflected, knowing that this was another example of a mistake he'd recognised too late to do anything about.

"She's just someone I know from college, Akane," Ranma said, hoping against hope that Genma and Soun were out.

"Oh like I believe that," Akane spat, before she stormed past him and headed inside.

_The worst thing_, Ranma decided as he followed her in, _isn't even that she misjudges me, or that she won't listen to me. The worst thing is that I think I don't even care anymore_.

It was not a happy thought.

* * *

_Hey, this is pretty good_, Ranma thought as he turned another page of _A Nice Normal Life_. After dinner, which he'd cooked for himself, as he usually did these days, Ranma had retreated to his room to study. When he dumped the contents of his backpack onto the floor the novel Chiyo-san had given him had fallen out as well. Deciding that he needed to relax after his latest argument with Akane Ranma had picked it up to see if it was any good. After five minutes he was hooked. He couldn't have said what it was about the story hat he liked so much. Nothing really seemed to be happening and the characters were fairly dull, even if the writing was good. It was just pleasant to read for some reason. Yawning, Ranma realized it had gotten late while he'd been absorbed in the story.

"Time to turn in I guess," he observed.

Thinking about the day he'd had – and the fact that he was probably going to have a lot more like it – gave Ranma a strange thought as he lay down on his futon and dragged the covers over himself.

_Sometimes_, he thought, _it might be nice to have a plain old ordinary life like the characters in that book._

* * *

Ranma had left _A Nice Normal Life _lying open to the last page he'd read. In the early hours of the morning the letters began to glow with a soft, silvery grey light. The glow strengthened and for a moment flashed so bright it lit Ranma's room like day, then vanished.

As did Ranma.

* * *

"You're going to be late, you idiot!" Akane exclaimed as she barged into Ranma's room later in the morning of the same day.

"Alright, where is he," Akane grumbled when she saw that his futon was empty. When yelling his name at the top of her voice got no answer and a quick look around the house revealed no trace of him she assumed that he'd already left for college.

If Akane had looked down she might have noticed the worn paperback lying on the floor. The title now read: _Ranma Saotome's Nice Normal Life_.


	2. 2

Escapsim

2

Ranma woke slowly, twisting around lazily on his futon as his body got used to the idea that it was time to get up. His eyelids opened a crack as the door to his room slid open and a familiar figure poked her head in.

"Time to get up, Ranma-kun."

"Uhhhh . . . five more minutes Kyoko, okay?"

"Mother says if you don't get up now you won't have time to eat before you have to leave for college."

Kyoko snickered as the sheet shrouded form of her little brother stiffened then began to rise up like a creature awakening from the dead.

"I knew that would get your attention. See you at breakfast, little brother."

Ranma groaned as his sister walked away and rubbed sleepily at his face before struggling to his feet. A quick soak in the furo and he'd feel a lot better, he decided. Drifting up from downstairs Ranma could hear the sounds of his family – sisters, mother, father – talking over breakfast. After washing and dressing, feeling much more awake, Ranma headed down to join them.

"Hey, that looks good."

"Thanks big brother!" Madoka said happily.

Ranma ruffled his little sister's hair as he sat down next to her.

"So you cooked today, hey squirt?"

"Uh-huh – and don't call me that!" Madoka told him, pleasure warring with petulance in her expression.

"You did have some help from mother," Kyoko observed from the other side of the table.

"Only a _little_," Madoka shot back, her attention diverted from one sibling to the other. The friendly bickering passing between his sisters failed to register with Ranma, who was too interested in his breakfast to pay them much attention. His regarded him with a mixture of affection and resignation as he consumed enough food as the rest of the family put together.

"If he this keeps up, Orino-kun, we're going to have to sell the car to pay our food bills," she told her husband, only half joking.

"I'm sure we'll manage somehow Mai-chan," he replied, not looking up from his newspaper.

Mai Wa sighed at his obliviousness and stood to gather up the plates when it became apparent that her children had finished eating.

* * *

Akane wasn't worried when she got home that evening to find Ranma wasn't there. She wasn't even worried when there was no sign of him long after he would have normally arrived home. She was, however, angry.

"Kami-sama knows where that baka is," she muttered over dinner – takeout, of course, with Ranma absent. She went to bed assuming that Ranma would show up at some point – and that she'd punish him suitably for running off wherever he had.

_He's such a jerk_, Akane thought sleepily. _We're still in the same old mess we were when he got here, more or less, and he hasn't done anything about it. Even after that mess of a wedding he wouldn't put his foot down with Ukyo or Shampoo and now he's going off to college and doing who knows what! It makes me so _angry! _If he'd just do something to sort all this out I know things would get better, I know it! Why won't he do . . . something . . . then I could . . . tell him . . ._

The thought that Ranma might still be searching for a way to resolve the situation never crossed Akane's mind. Neither did it occur to her that it might have been easier for him if he'd had her support. As sleep claimed Akane her thoughts were still running in the same circles as they had countless times before.

Akane woke to the sound of her father's shrill complaints and Genma's angry rumbling.

_What's happened now?_ she wondered. It wasn't long before her question was answered when Soun and Genma came charging into her room.

"Akane! That faithless boy has run out on you!"

"What?" Akane yelled.

"The boy never came home last night," Genma muttered furiously, wondering what the hell his ingrate son was playing at.

"WHAT?" Akane yelled again, much more loudly.

Genma and Soun exchanged a look, realizing for the first time that they had not managed this as well as they could have.

"I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!" Akane screamed, her thoughts wild.

_WHERE TO, WHERE TO? UCCHAN'S – NO SHE'S VISITING HER FAMILY, I BET HE'S AT THE NEKOHANTEN, THOSE DAMN AMAZONS ARE ALWAYS PULLING STUNTS LIKE THIS, SO I'LL TRY THERE FIRST AND THAT DAMN SHAMPOO WON'T BEAT ME THIS TIME!_

Akane strode down the street like a woman possessed, her battle aura so potent that she was leaving a trail of black patches behind her where her feet had landed. Soun and Genma trailed along behind her like fallen leaves being carried down a gutter by storm water. When Akane arrived at the Nekohanten she didn't bother knocking. One chi enhanced punch was enough to knock the door off its hinges and send charred pieces flying into the restaurant. Akane marched inside – and stopped dead at the sight of Cologne calmly balancing on her cane in the middle of the room, manifesting a battle aura that dwarfed Akane's.

"I felt your anger from several blocks away child," Cologne informed her coolly, the force of her aura lending emphasis to her words. "I would like to know exactly what has happened to make you _this_ angry."

"You can't trick me!" Akane replied heatedly, determined not to back down. "I want to know what you've done with Ranma right now!"

"Has something happened to son-in-law?"

"YOU KNOW DAMN WELL HE ISN'T AT HOME SO DON'T LIE TO ME!" Akane screamed, her temper surging at what she believed to be Cologne's attempted deception, counteracting the small degree of calm she'd gained when the strength of Cologne's aura had shocked her out of the worst of her rage.

"_I. Am. Not. Lying_." Cologne replied in a voice that would have raised goose bumps on a corpse. The Amazon Matriarch gave a mental nod of satisfaction as Akane backed down in the face of a technique that made her father's Demon Head trick look pathetic by comparison.

"Now," she continued in a much more normal tone of voice, "suppose you tell me what happened?"

_I don't like this at all_, Cologne decided a few minutes later after hearing what Akane had to say.

_It's a good thing I sent Shampoo and Mousse out when I felt the girl and those two old fools coming. Just the fact that all three of them were coming here together meant it was something out of the ordinary – something I might have had to deal with myself – but I wasn't expecting this._

To someone only casually acquainted with life in the unconventional suburb of Nerima it might not have seemed terribly unusual for one of its most colourful inhabitants to go missing for a day or so. To someone who understood the underlying dynamics of the situation it was worrying indeed.

_The boy is like a homing pigeon when it comes to the Tendo's_, Cologne reflected. _His attachment to the familiar is so strong that the only circumstances under which he would not return there at day's end are if he'd been kicked out – which is not the case – or if he was being kept away somehow._

And Ranma being who he was, there was no way of knowing who, or what, had gotten hold of him, or what their purpose was.

"And the last place you saw him was at home, the night before last?" she asked Akane.

"Yes," Akane replied, her voice taut with frustration.

Cologne decided no to bother asking if Akane had noticed anything unusual about Ranma then. The girl was not exactly observant.

"Then I would like to see his room," Cologne informed her.

"What? Why?"

"Because it is the last place we know he was," Cologne replied acerbically.

"Oh."

Akane sighed, then nodded, managing to look annoyed, angry, resigned and worried simultaneously. Without another word she turned around and headed outside, Cologne following. The Matriarch ignored Genma and Soun's blustering queries as the strange little procession made its way to the Tendo Dojo. Under different circumstances Cologne might have missed the tingle of magic she felt as she entered the Tendo's home unless it had been waved under her nose, but with all her senses sharpened to their utmost it was easy to sense.

_It's coming from upstairs_.

Cologne moved past Akane and headed upstairs, the magical signature growing dramatically stronger as arrived at the door to Ranma's room. She looked inside and her attention was immediately drawn to the book lying on the floor that gleamed with magical energy to her enhanced vision. Cologne drew back as she recognised the magical artifact for what it was.

_Oh no_.

"Keep back!" she hissed as Akane came up behind her.

"What's going on?"

"_I said keep back!_"

Cologne turned around and herded Akane down the stairs.

"Hey! What are you-"

"I will explain after we're away from that room!" Cologne declared as she shepherded Akane into the living room where Soun and Genma were standing.

Cologne thought hard as she faced Akane, her father and Ranma's father. Explaining this was going to be difficult – and it was entirely possible that she wouldn't be believed. She drew a deep breath before beginning to speak.

"Ranma has been caught in a soul entrapment."

Silence.

"WHAT?" Genma roared.

"NOW THE HOUSES CAN NEVER BE JOINED!" Soun wailed.

Akane, however, remained curiously silent.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly, after Soun and genma ranting and railing had died down.

"There was a book lying on the floor of Ranma's room," Cologne told her, "although I doubt you noticed. It's an example of a type of magical artifact known as a soul entrapment, as I said."

"Is that bad?"

If the situation hadn't been so serious Cologne would have rolled her eyes at Genma's question.

"Yes," _you fat, ignorant fool_, "it's bad. A soul entrapment is a spell bound to a physical object that ensnares a person in a private world of their own making. More than that, it cannot be invoked without the will of its subject, which makes it impossible to break."

"Are you saying Ranma _wanted_ this to happen," Akane asked incredulously.

"I doubt Ranma even realized he was making such an arrangement, but yes," Cologne replied, wondering as she did so if anything apart from the last word of that sentence would register with Akane.

Apparently not, judging by the way her face had crumpled up.

"Well how the hell do we get the stupid boy out?" Genma demanded.

Cologne looked at him steadily.

"You can't."

* * *

It was past one in the morning when Akane snuck into Ranma's room, clutching her sheets around her. It had been a bad day. After Cologne's announcement her father and Genma had both exploded. They'd yelled, screamed, demanded, pleaded, begged and threatened (much good that would do them against someone like Cologne, Akane had thought at the time), but it hadn't made any difference. The Amazon Matriarch had been adamant that there was no way to rescue Ranma from the soul entrapment. When they hadn't been able to get an answer more to their liking from Cologne the two men had ordered her out of the house in a fit of rage. Akane had gotten the impression that Cologne hadn't wanted to leave with the book just lying around, but she didn't remember the morning's events very clearly. With a choked sob Akane sank down onto Ranma's futon. After Cologne had left, her father and Genma had argued frantically with each other about what to do. When her father had said something about telling Ranma's mother Genma had practically gone through the roof. Akane hadn't been paying much attention to anything by that point, but she vaguely recalled Genma saying something about the neko-ken . . . 'damn woman kicked me out of the house . . . all I could do to keep the boy here . . ." It didn't matter to her. She just wanted Ranma to come back.

_Funny how it's so much easier to admit that after he's gone_ . . . a nasty little voice whispered in the back of her mind.

_I just want him back_, Akane thought miserably. _I wish I could go after him somehow_.

It was than that she noticed the book lying on the floor.

_Ranma Saotome's Nice Normal Life_.

Weeping quietly, Akane picked up the book and began to read.

* * *

Akane had fallen asleep with _Ranma Saotome's Nice Normal Life _lying open in her lap. In the early hours of the morning the letters began to glow with a soft, silvery grey light. The glow strengthened and for a moment flashed so bright it lit the room like day, then vanished.

As did Akane.


	3. 3

Escapism

3

Akane woke up in a small, sparsely furnished apartment. She learned by looking around that it had a kitchen, a living room, a small bathroom with shower and a bedroom and a few items of furniture; One table, two chairs, one chest of drawers, one bed.

_Weird_, she thought.

She had a vague sensation that something was wrong, but couldn't put her feelings into words. This wasn't her home but . . . it was. She clearly remembered being raised in an orphanage and applying for emancipated minor status when she turned sixteen.

_But . . . but . . . something's wrong, I know it . . . what's missing?_

Akane's sense of uncertainty clashed with her new memories. Fighting against her memories she struggled towards a fragment of thought she barely recognized.

_What is it . . . ?_

And then everything went white as she crumpled to the floor with the pain of remembering.

> > >

"No way!"

"I swear, it happened!"

"Man Arashi, I can't believe you did that! She's never gonna forgive you now."

Ranma's friend grinned unrepentantly.

"Ah, my natural charm will win her over – hey! Cutie at three o'clock!"

Ranma followed Arashi's gaze from where he and one of his friends were sitting under a tree on the campus grounds, enjoying a brief respite between classes. The girl was definitely cute, Ranma decided, her short dark hair framing a pretty face set with large brown eyes. When she realized he was looking at her the girl flushed and turned away, hastily walking off.

"Lucky bastard," Arashi declared, "she was totally checking you out."

"She was not," Ranma denied instinctively, even as he wondered at the odd flash of recognition he'd felt when he looked at her.

_I don't think I'll tell Arashi that_, Ranma decided, with a bemused glance at his lecherously minded companion.

> > >

_He didn't recognize me_, Akane thought miserably when she arrived back at the apartment after a day spent following Ranma around. The time she'd spent reading the book had told her everything she needed to know to find Ranma and follow him around without being too obvious about it, except for the one time she hadn't been able to resist getting just a little bit closer . . . for all the good it had done her. It had been a disheartening day. Ranma had been obviously, undeniably happy, going to classes, hanging out with his friends and attending a meeting of the martial arts club before going home. It had turned out, weirdly enough, that she was enrolled at the same university was attending and she met several people who knew her – the other her anyway – so finding out a few things about Ranma hadn't been too difficult. Her questions hadn't really been that subtle, but it didn't seem to matter. Ranma was still the object of considerable interest on the part of the opposite sex, so the people she'd asked about him had made their own assumptions about her reasons for asking. She'd learnt a few things that hadn't been in the book. He was still a martial artist – no surprise there, though from what she'd seen he'd lost a lot of the edge training with Genma had given him. A good student too – his best grades were in history and art, of all things.

But the most significant thing she'd learnt about him was this: No girlfriends.

He was friends with a few girls, and there were plenty who were interested in him, but she'd heard from several people that Ranma didn't seem interested in dating at all. It was unnerving to think that Ranma's dream life was missing all the things connected to him that she'd most hated.

Lying in bed that night Akane was confused, frightened and had no idea what to do next.

_Okay, according to Cologne this is supposed to be Ranma's dream world. She could have been lying, but as far as I can see Ranma seems to think this place is perfect so I guess that's true. It seems that all the things he didn't like about his old life are gone. No crazy challengers, no fiancées, no Genma being an idiot, no curse . . . and no me. No Tendo Akane in this world._

Try as she might Akane couldn't avoid one very unpleasant fact: When given the chance to create his ideal world Ranma had made a world from which she was conspicuously absent.

_What if he never wants to leave? For that matter, what if there's no way for us to get back?_

It was then that a new thought occurred to her, at once frightening and horribly tempting.

_What if we just don't? All the things back home that made everything so difficult don't even exist here. And as for all the things that drove me nuts, well, I now I know for sure that Ranma didn't want things to be like that either. Maybe . . . maybe we can really make it work now._

Akane turned that thought over for awhile, trying to decide what about it bothered her.

_No, she decided at last, I have to make it work this time. Ranma wanted to be free of everything from his old life . . . including me. If I want to make this work then I have to change._

Soothed by how right this thought felt, Akane turned over and drifted off to sleep.

> > >

"Um, hi."

Ranma looked up curiously at the sound of a hesitant female voice and blinked in surprise at what he saw.

_Hey, it's that cute girl from yesterday._

"Hi."

"Do you mind if I sit here?"

At Ranma's raised eyebrow the girl rushed to explain.

"It's just that you have a really nice spot here and I wanted somewhere out of the sun to eat lunch."

"Oh. Okay."

"I'm Tendo Akane, by the way."

"I'm Ranma. Wa Ranma."

She smiled at him then and Ranma felt something unfamiliar surge in him at the sight.

_Well_, Akane thought as she watched Ranma duck his head and rub the back of his head in a very familiar way, _I might just be able to make this work._

The thought made her happier than she had been in a long time.

End


End file.
